This invention relates to radio communication systems in general and particularly to a system for interconnecting telephone calls to portable radio devices. The second generation cordless telephone system or CT-2 system that has been proposed envisions utilization of a plurality of RF channels for radio communication. The proposed system would include forty channels for providing the RF links between the cordless telephones or CT-2 handsets and the base system which is connected to the existing telephone network. In operation, when the user is at his home base, telephone calls would be transmitted via the home base to the cordless telephone. When away from the home base, the cordless telephone unit can be used to originate telephone calls when the user is within range of a telepoint or callpoint. To originate a call, the cordless telephone would scan the 40 channels to find an available channel and then attempt to access the telepoint. The telepoint, likewise, would be scanning the forty available channels for incoming radio calls and when it received a call request from a cordless telephone would provide the telephone interconnection. Such a system, provides for the placement of calls from the cordless telephone while away from home base. However, it is not readily adaptable to the reception of phone calls. There have been proposals to include a wide area paging receiver within the cordless telephone in order to receive messages such as the fact that a call has been made to the cordless telephone number. Such an approach necessitates that the cordless telephone must be able to receive the page message, thereby complicating the cordless telephone design.
In other radio telephone systems, such as cellular radio, substantial infrastructure is required including a control channel for locating cellular phones in order to connect calls to a cellular phone. It would be desirable to have a simple method of locating a cordless telephone in a system, such as the proposed CT-2 system.